AUSTRALIA
Oxygen pumped to dying fish
The state of New South Wales yesterday announced plans to mechanically pump oxygen into lakes and rivers after hundreds of thousands of fish have died in heatwave conditions. Up to a million dead fish were found floating last week in the Darling River. Minister for Regional Water Niall Blair said that 16 battery-powered aerators have been bought and would be placed in the waterways.
SOUTH KOREA
North not called ‘enemy’
South Korea has stopped calling North Korea an “enemy” in its biennial defense document in an apparent effort to continue reconciliation with Pyongyang. The development comes as US and North Korean leaders are looking to set up their second summit to defuse an international standoff over North Korea’s nuclear program. South Korea first called North Korea a “main enemy” in its 1995 document, a year after North Korea threatened to turn Seoul into “a sea of fire.”
RUSSIA
Telescope ‘incommunicado’
Roscosmos, the national space agency, on Monday said it had lost control of its only space radio telescope, but that officials were working to re-establish communication. A US observatory detected signals from the space agency’s gigantic Spektr-R, or RadioAstron, telescope, which stopped responding to commands from Earth on Thursday last week, it said. “I cannot bury a satellite that is alive for sure,” RadioAstron project head Yuri Kovalev said. “It’s like asking for a comment about a sick person when doctors are fighting for his life.”
UNITED STATES
Dismemberment gets 30
A man who admitted to killing and dismembering his mother during an argument in their Honolulu, Hawaii, apartment has been sentenced to 30 years in prison. Gong Yuwei (龔宇威) was charged with murder after he called police in 2017 to turn himself in after a suicide attempt. He admitted killing his mother, Gong Liuyun (龔柳雲), about six months earlier, according to court documents. When officers asked where his mother was, he said: “In the fridge.” Gong, 28, spent most of Monday’s sentencing looking down. He spoke quietly as he apologized to his family in China and Hawaii. “I am ashamed for what I did,” he said. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
UNITED STATES
Trump, Clemson ‘Lovin’ it’
The scent of burgers, fries and victory on Monday wafted through the White House as President Donald Trump saluted college football’s Clemson Tigers for winning the national championship. Trump said he even paid for the meal himself, because of the partial government shutdown. “We ordered American fast food, paid for by me,” Trump said. Silver trays held stacks of burgers from Wendy’s and McDonald’s, including Big Macs. Cups bearing the presidential seal held fries.
HONDURAS
New caravan heads to US
Hundreds of migrants on Monday began the long trek north, part of a new US-bound caravan that hopes to succeed even as a previous wave of Central Americans were unable to quickly enter the US. Television footage showed people in the city of San Pedro Sula waving Honduran flags as they began the journey. There are 600 to 800 people, according to an estimate provided by Miroslava Serpas, head of migrant affairs with the CIPRODEH human rights research center, which is accompanying the group.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion